Opportunities in Brownsville Texas

[Phillip Troutman]

Hey everyone - like a lot of folks my ears have perked up about Brownsville Texas recently. I'm looking to add another property to my portfolio before the end of this year and Brownsville has been on my radar. I know this is a bit of a broad post, but i'm really interested to hear what strategies investors have been successful with in this area.

A few questions i'm really interested in  finding answers to. If anyone has thoughts or answers the following questions I'd love to hear from you. (i'll update this post with answers as I get them)

• - Vacancy rates
• - Rent trends (what are renters looking for? class A properties)
• - Has the Starbase effected real estate in the last year?
• - What are the most sought after neighborhoods in the area?
• - Is airbnb a better bet for this area
• I appreciate all the feedback on these questions or others

[Andrew Postell]

@Phillip Troutman I have done several transactions in Brownsville (and surrounding "valley" towns) and I might answer this with a very generic response - if you have a network of property managers, realtors, etc. to help you be successful in a specific area then that is more important than the actual area.  I am also an out of state investor.  I only invest out of state where I have people that I can trust.  So while I might suggest a different town than Brownsville to invest in.....maybe you already have a great network.  And if so, that trumps any other town suggestion that I have.

And just to have some "baseline" responses for this area:

1. Good rental properties in this area will be $175,000 and under
2. A "desirable" neighborhood is still a relative term and usually NOT what we focus on if we are focusing on cash flowing properties.  Meaning, three $100,000 houses will cash flow a lot better than one $300,000 house.  To a renter you just need to provide a BETTER option for their existing neighborhood that they already live in.  
3. AirBNB is equal here to nearly any other 175,000 population town.  The location to the water does not make a difference at this distance.
4. Starbase sounds exciting!  But $20,000,000 to help "infrastructure and schools" goes pretty quickly.  Most schools cost $20million to build in Texas so this amount is not the type of attraction to spur a large % of growth for the area.  I would not factor this element in to my equation if I want to invest here or not.

The basic opinion here is to follow the same methodology that you work with any town of this size and it will show you that it is a reasonable area to invest in.  The network will be the most important ingredient to the equation though. I hope this helps in some way.